A bit of a late reply to Star pilot: I agree exactly that for terrain to have any tactical use, it does need to be go over large areas. Clearly one tile is pointless. I guess I'd envision things like a nebula stretching all the way actoss the map, having zones of varying strength, and so on.
SP: the galaxy is in a disk, but by no means are the stars all in the same plane. I admit I have a (possibly misplaced) desire for terrain in games like this. I'm basically suggesting the same thing that anglewyrm is. Some people may or may not like it, and probably the best solution to that would be to have a "terrain density" slider in the game creation screen so we could have it both ways. I think that terrain matched with varying effects when combined wi
One of the things I liked most about the original GC was the relatively low levels of inconsequential micromanagement. I'm actually moderately worried about having to manage planet screens and design ships. These are all decent ideas, but may turn out to be a drag once things get too large.
Having manual refit of ships is only worth doing if there a very few ships to begin with, otherwise its a pain in the ass. I personally like the "predesigned model" system of GC1 ships. it really took the pain out of things.
SP I'm not going to address your science, because like I said, this game isn't meant to be real. But I would like to address the Point about 3D maps. The game is not in 3D, its in a 2D plane drawn with a 3D engine. Its currently pefectly possible to create blockades by just putting a big line of ships in space. Clearly in a real 3d space you could just go around, but like I said, the game is not in 3D, *nor should it be*. Look, its one thing to say
The center of the galaxy is thought to be a supermassive black hole, but it doesn't "suck everything in". FTL drives aren't really possible, so if we're talking about made up stuff its simple enough to talk about how it interacts with the world at large, if we desire. The point is that terrain would add tactical variation to the map, not that it accurately models the interaction with (nonexistant) technologies. The question becomes which scenario is more interesting: 1) A map containing not
Terrain is an odd balance between "fun" and "realism" I completely agree, especially for a game involving something as empty as space. I just think some level of pervasive terrain would add an interesting layer to the game. Basically I'd want terrain do the following 1) Change the range/speed of ships 2) Change se
I like the idea of a smaller number of ships. Large fleets always seem to be a drag for me to deal with, for all the reasons discussed above. If I were to suggest a compromise to the big/little problem, I would have each planet you own give a certain number of ship points. The number of points would be related to planet quality, population, random bonuses, etc. Each ship would take up a number of ship points until it is destroyed or decommisioned. Thus for larger map
If there is going to be something like terrain added to the game (asteroids, black holes, nebula, etc), it would be nice if there were enough of them to make a significant difference to game play. Whenever I see terrian in 4x space games, it always seem to sit in one small corner and basically do nothing, or its effect is so limited as to make it pointless.
